


a sad tale's best for winter

by branwyn



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Ellaria is clever, F/F, F/M, Oberyn is chivalrous but dense, Objectification, Sex Work, disguises, musical Sansa, rape threat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2017-10-07
Packaged: 2019-01-10 00:24:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12287346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/branwyn/pseuds/branwyn
Summary: Oberyn and Ellaria visit the finest brothel in Oldtown. One of its most alluring attraction is the harpist, a girl with dyed brown hair.She's still a maid, the brothel-keep assures them.





	a sad tale's best for winter

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, so our fundraiser to stop me and my roommate and her daughter from being evicted was a success! Thank you so much, everyone who donated or shared the link!

_Oberyn_

Samundi’s pillow house in Oldtown was a far cry from the upstairs room at the tavern near the Citadel where Oberyn had accidentally begat his eldest daughter twenty-five years ago. Samundi’s catered to Oldtown’s elite, be they lords or princes or wealthy captain-owners making port in the city for a few nights, but Oberyn had never before set foot inside it. 

But he and Ellaria were in need of a few hours’ rest and refreshment on their way back to Sunspear after visiting Willas Tyrell in Highgarden, and Samundi’s was as good a place as any. Besides, Oberyn always enjoyed himself more in the pillow houses when Ellaria was with him. She had an eye for the exquisite, the unexpected—the rare.

He was lounging with Ellaria on a chaise in the room below stairs, allowing his eye to roam over the flesh on display as he sipped his wine and hummed along with the music playing softly in the background. Then, suddenly, Ellaria gasped.

“Oh, she is lovely,” she breathed. 

Oberyn turned, his gaze flitting from one lithe young creature clad in scanty silk to the next, until he realized where, exactly, Ellaria was looking.

In the corner of the room, concealed, from certain angles, by the folds of a heavy velvet tapestry, sat a girl playing the high harp. Strange that he had not noticed her before—they had only made up their minds to step inside the elegant manse where Samundi ran her establishment because Oberyn had heard the fine playing coming from inside. When he’d remarked upon the music to Ellaria, she had suggested that they might as well take their rest there. Even if the offerings of the establishment proved poor, at least they could refresh themselves with wine and music for a time before setting back down the Roseroad. 

Oberyn had readily agreed, yet he had not so much as troubled to look round for the harpist after he was inside. The offerings at Samundi’s were _not_ poor, and his ears had been forgotten as he sought to fill his eyes.

But the harpist. Ellaria was right; she was an especially fine specimen. Her skin was smooth and translucent, as though it had never seen the sun; her features were delicate and symmetrical, her eyes large and blue. Her hair was dyed some unnatural shade of chestnut, but it was long, thick and wavy, covering her back and shoulders like a cloak. It gave her a more modest air than the other girls, though she wore the same sort of slashed silk gown as all the rest of them. 

Yet the other girls, milling about the room, draping themselves across men’s laps, wore gowns in all colors of the rainbow, Oberyn noticed. Only the harpist wore white.

Perhaps there were other girls in the room with features as fine as hers. There were certainly girls whose hair would not stain the bedsheets with nut brown dye. What set the harpist apart was the look on her face. Samundi’s other treasures all wore the same mask in different styles. They entertained the men with merry laughter and kept the corners of their painted lips tipped up in alluring smiles. The kohl that lined their eyes made it appear as if they were smiling, even when they were not. 

The harpist, by contrast, did not smile, and looked at no man. Her face was unpainted, which made her look several years younger than the next-youngest girl Oberyn could spy in the crowd. She was concentrating entirely on her playing. A faint furrow creased her brow, though her long white fingers plucked and caressed the harp strings with confidence.

From time to time the little harpist shut her eyes, as though swept away by her own music—or, perhaps, as though she imagined herself playing before a different sort of crowd. She seemed not to notice or care whether anyone was looking at her. But many men _were_ looking at her. Now that Oberyn was looking himself, the others caught up in her spell were easy to spot. Some men stared at her dreamily, their faces stupid with drink, as though the music had taken them far away from their surroundings. Others stared with naked lust, and one or two with heavy, angry looks of resentment. Perhaps they did not care for music. Or perhaps the girl’s price was more than they could afford, and they were covetous.

The song the harpist was playing ended, but the music did not. Seamlessly, she transitioned into a new song, one Oberyn had never heard before. This one was stranger, sadder, and there was something about the fierce way she began to manipulate the strings that made Oberyn wonder if this were not the girl’s own composition, or else an improvised air. 

“My prince. My lady. You have exquisite taste.”

Samundi was a stout, handsome woman between fifty and sixty—it was difficult to tell beneath the paint and the russet red hair dye. She curtsied low when Oberyn and Ellaria turned their faces to her.

“Cora is new to my establishment,” she said, nodding to the harpist. “I’ve been…preserving her for someone worthy. She’s a clever little thing, isn’t she? Nimble fingers.”

“She plays beautifully,” said Ellaria, and something about her diplomatic tone made Oberyn examine her expression. He knew well how his paramour looked when she was aroused. This was different. She admired the girl, that was plain. But she was curious, too, and that was enough to rouse Oberyn’s own curiosity.

“When you say that you have been preserving her…?” he said.

“She is a maid, my prince. I always keep one or two on hand, though normally I don’t let them mingle below stairs until they’ve learned their trade. But Cora’s different. Likes to feel that she’s earning her keep.” Samundi sounded like a proud mother, satisfied to find a prince and his paramour admiring her talented daughter.

Suspicion prickled at the back of Oberyn’s neck, but he could not put his finger on the cause. “And she is new, you say? How did she come to you?”

Samundi heaved a tragic sigh. “The same way most of them come to me, my prince. Nowhere else to go. She said she was an orphan, and why shouldn’t she be? I don’t ask my girls many questions, so long as they do what they’re told, and I’ve had no cause to complain of this one.” 

Suddenly, she lowered her voice in a dramatic whisper. “She was gently brought up though, I can tell you that much. Cora’s the only name she gave me, but I’ve been about my business long enough to spot a lord's by-blow when I see one. Her proper name’s Flowers, or I’m the Queen. Begging your pardon, my prince.”

Ellaria, clinging to his arm, grew suddenly rigid. Oberyn did not have to look at her this time to guess why. Bastard or not, in Dorne a child with a highborn parent was treated as highborn herself. It was rare—exceedingly rare—that a Sand was ever forced into desperate circumstances because their family refused or neglected to provide for them. Ellaria had a complicated past in that regard, but hers was an exceptional case, and Oberyn had taken delight in restoring her to all the honor that ought to have been hers from birth. Their daughters, though they did not bear the name Martell, would be protected by Martell might all their lives, and that was only as it should be.

“I imagine you have had many offers for her,” he said, taking care to keep his voice casual.

“Offers by the hour, my prince,” said Samundi, with a pleased chuckle. “But she’s a good girl. She deserves quality.” Her tone left no room for doubt that a prince of Dorne was _quality_ , in her books.

Ellaria squeezed his arm suddenly. “My prince and I are very fond of music,” she said. “But we would prefer to be entertained privately.”

Oberyn lay his free hand atop Ellaria’s and nodded down into the careworn face of the woman before them.

“A sitting room will do for the nonce,” he said. “In the meantime, you might have a bedchamber prepared.”

The wariness fled Samundi’s face. “Certainly, my prince,” she said. “If you will be good enough to wait here for a moment.”

Oberyn made a show of waving her on with his wine goblet and relaxing against the back of the chaise like a man without a care in the world. But he watched closely as Samundi whispered a word in the ear of one of the strapping youths that made up her stable of fleshly delights, before moving on to the corner where the harpist sat.

The harpist saw Samundi and the youth approaching her, but she brought her song to a quick, improvised conclusion, rather than leaving off playing in the middle. Samundi took her by the hand while the boy picked up the high harp and disappeared with it through an invisible gap in the velvet hangings. Samundi, a hand placed firmly between Cora’s shoulder blades, followed after him.

“What are you thinking, my love?” said Oberyn, as they waited for Samundi to return and tell them that all was prepared.

“I don’t know.” Ellaria sounded troubled. “Looking at her gave me the strangest feeling. I would like to speak with her.”

Oberyn shrugged, drained his goblet, and set it aside. “Then speak with her you shall,” he said, tugging Ellaria against his side.

*

_Sansa_

She knew who he was, of course. Not by his face, but by his…everything else. The dark hair, the arrogant set of his shoulders, the sun-and-spear embroidery on his clothing, even the mysterious dark-haired woman on his arm. 

And even if she did not know the Red Viper’s reputation well enough to recognize him by these signs, she could hear the entire room whispering his name when he walked in. It had taken all of her self control to remain seated and keep playing. Joffrey wanted her back in King’s Landing; ever since she escaped with Sandor during the siege, there had been warrants with her description posted everywhere, offering rewards for her return. Anyone loyal to the crown was dangerous to her, and Dorne was, ostensibly at least, loyal.

Worse than this was the fact that there had been bad blood between Sansa’s father and the Martells of Sunspear ever since the time of King Robert’s rebellion, many years ago. Should Oberyn Martell recognize her, Sansa thought, the gods only knew what would become of her.

But there was no reason why he should. Who would expect to find Sansa Stark in a…a house of sighing? Besides, everyone knew that Eddard Stark’s eldest daughter had red hair. With her hair covered in dye, she was as anonymous as…well, as anonymous as Prince Oberyn might be, if his clothing weren’t covered with the sigil of his house. Or if he didn’t walk into rooms with that lazy arrogance in his tread, as though he considered himself lord of all he surveyed.

Sansa had been vigilant about maintaining her disguise. “Slip up just once, and you’re dead,” Sandor had warned her, over and over again, during their long journey from King’s Landing to the mouth of the Roseroad. 

She’d thought, when they set out together, that Sandor would stay with her—protect her—look after her, like he’d promised to do back when he’d persuaded her to flee the city with him. But then, one night, she’d found him staring at her. They were traveling together as father and daughter, so they shared a single room when they took lodgings at taverns and inns. Sandor’s eyes had burned at her like two candle flames in the darkness, and Sansa had known, instinctively, that something had changed.

“I can’t protect you,” he’d said finally, after a long, tense silence. “I thought I could. Gods help me, I wanted to. But you’re no safer with me than you were with that cunt Joffrey.”

A few months ago, Sansa would have thrown that sort of talk back in his face. “You won’t hurt me,” she had said to him once, making it a challenge. _Be a good man. Be honorable, for yourself, for me._ But that night, in that dark room, she’d known it was useless. This, apparently, was all the honor Sandor could muster now—this warning that that she wasn’t safe, that she could not trust him.

The next morning, she’d awoken to find Sandor gone and a sack of gold coins on the pillow next to her. Sansa had wept for awhile, but deep down, some part of her had been relieved. 

Before, Sandor had talked of going to Oldtown, taking a ship from there to Braavos or somewhere even farther away. She had left all the planning to him, so when he left her, she had no plans of her own. But Sandor had drilled into her head the necessity of not staying in one place for too long, not out in the countryside where strangers were closely observed. So she’d used some of the gold he left her to secure a place in a wagon convoy headed down the Roseroad into Oldtown, just as they had been planning to do together. 

Oldtown was such a large city that it was tempting to believe she might live there, with no one the wiser, for as long as she needed to. But even with her hair dyed dark, Sansa knew that she was still, unmistakably, a highborn maid of two-and-ten, traveling alone, without family or servants or guards. People talked about that sort of thing. And King’s Landing was not so far away from Oldtown that the Lannisters might not send people to investigate the rumors—people who would know her face, despite her dyed hair. If she wanted to live, she would have to do a better job of disappearing. She would have to sink in the world, become the sort of girl no one would be surprised at finding alone and friendless in a large city. 

It was remarkably easy to begin looking like a commoner, Sansa had discovered, once her gold began to run out. Time was all that was needed. Time turned even fine gowns into dirty, tattered rags, roughened even the smoothest hands. Hunger made her cheeks hollow until she looked older than two-and-ten, though it also flattened her breasts and made her hips as narrow as a boy’s. It would have been better all around if she could have passed herself off as a boy. She knew she could manage the look of it, especially if she were willing to cut her hair, but she couldn’t do any of the things boys did to earn a living. She wasn’t strong, she wasn’t aggressive enough, and she couldn’t talk the way boys talked.

Arya could have managed it, Sansa often thought, but she wasn’t Arya. 

Sansa sought employment in Oldtown for weeks. Had she been a common, orphaned girl in the north, she could have presented herself at the gates of Winterfell, and a place would have been found for her somewhere—in the kitchens, in the glass houses, as a needlewoman’s apprentice, anywhere a pair of hands might be useful. But the Tyrells were the lords of the Reach, and Margaery Tyrell was Joffrey’s newly betrothed wife since the siege of the Blackwater. If Sansa presented herself at Highgarden, even in disguise, she would be in as much danger of discovery as if she’d stayed in King’s Landing. The Hightowers of Oldtown were likewise too closely allied with the Tyrells to risk throwing herself on their mercy. 

She would have to find some means of earning her own living without the assistance of another highborn family—but she only had a few skills. One needlewoman after another had rejected her pleas for employment. They were bringing up their own daughters and granddaughters in the trade, and had no need of an apprentice. She had tried to gain a place in the kitchens of three different taverns, only to be laughed at when she admitted that she couldn’t so much as bake a loaf of bread.

In the last place she had tried, one woman had suggested—not unkindly, Sansa thought—that she go ask for a place at Samundi’s.

“Who is Samundi?” Sansa had asked, and the roar of laughter she received had all but answered her question. Of course the woman had suggested a bawdy house. That was what girls like her did, when they were out of options; they starved to death, or they became whores.

Sansa had no intention of becoming a whore. She had fled King’s Landing with a man she did not entirely trust for the very purpose of avoiding that fate. Joffrey regarded himself as having _rights_ to her, even as it became increasingly clear that their betrothal was soon to be broken. Still, she had taken the woman’s advice. That night, Sansa had stood for an hour outside the doors of Samundi’s elegant manse, watching the men come and go, watching through the windows as the girls inside entertained the men. One of the girls had been playing on a small hand harp and singing while a crowd of admirers gathered round her. It had never occurred to Sansa before that a pillow house would have need of musicians, but Samundi’s had a veneer of respectability that made the presence of music seem not out of place.

Sansa wished with all her heart then that she had not frittered her gold away on tavern beds. If she had purchased her own harp—there had been enough gold in that bag for a small one, at least in the beginning—then she might have offered her services as a player at inns and other, more respectable establishments. In time, perhaps, she might have been invited to play at private entertainments in noble houses, a risk she could probably afford to take from time to time, if the pay was good enough. Sansa had attended many balls in King’s Landing, and never once had she paid any particular attention to the musicians. They were barely a step above servants, ignored as a matter of course by their betters.

But Sansa had no harp, only the knowledge of how to play one. And that was useless without the instrument itself. So she had gathered all her nerve, approached the doors of the manse, and asked whether she might speak with the proprietress. 

The burly man who guarded the doors looked her up and down, shook his head, and sighed, as though he had seen countless girls like her come and go in the course of his duties. Then he stepped aside and waved her in.

“I play the harp passingly well,” Sansa had told Samundi, twisting her hands together nervously as the old woman peered down at her with a calculating gleam in her eye. “I can play all night long without growing tired. Surely…surely your guests need entertaining below stairs as well as…above stairs?”

That was two weeks ago. The first night, Samundi had taken away her rags and given her the silks that all the girls in the house wore. The gown revealed far more of Sansa’s body than it concealed, and it left the scars on her back bare to the world. Sansa knew her scars were as bad as a head of red hair when it came to signs that might betray her identity. But no one objected when she let her hair hang loose in a curtain that fell to her hips. So long as she held herself carefully, long hair was as good as a cloak.

Sansa was no fool, despite what Sandor and everyone else thought of her. She knew that Samundi would turn her over for the reward in a heartbeat if she ever learned the truth. But a brothel keep in Oldtown surely paid little enough attention to gossip from King’s Landing? Sansa also knew that Samundi had some purpose for dressing her in white, when all the other girls wore gowns of light blue or lavender or pink. She didn’t yet know precisely what that purpose was. But no one had harmed her or insulted her since she had come here, and Samundi had paid her wages promptly each week, just as she had agreed. 

Soon, Sansa thought might have earned enough gold to buy a little harp of her own. If she could stand to remain in the brothel even a few weeks after that, she might also lay by enough gold for passage to Braavos. In the Free Cities, there was little chance of anyone recognizing her. And even if no one in Braavos wanted a harpist, Sansa had been working on her other skills as well. Every day, she rose at dawn and helped Risa, Samundi’s cook, with the day’s baking. Thanks to Risa’s teaching, Sansa could bake bread now, and make stew, and all sorts of other things. _Someone_ would hire her, even if she had to work for half wages until she had proven herself.

Sansa was thinking about bread as Samundi led her to the private parlor on the second floor of the manse, where Prince Oberyn and his paramour had requested a private entertainment. There were all sorts of different breads, and there were different tricks for baking each of them. The light, fluffy white loaves for the guests were among the easiest to make. The coarse brown loaves the servants ate were the most difficult, because they took so much kneading that Sansa’s elbows ached for hours afterwards. But her favorite bread to eat was the flatbread that came from Dorne, and that was the easiest to make of all. 

Sansa wondered what Samundi would say if she asked to work in the kitchens alongside Risa permanently. It certainly wasn’t as if Samundi paid any great heed to Sansa’s playing. When Sansa had asked her, on her first night, what sort of music her guests would like to hear, Samundi had only stared at her for a long moment before snorting and patting her on the shoulder, as though she were a child.

“The prince and his lady have never visited my establishment before,” Samundi tutted, as Tytos set the harp in place. She wandered around the room, checking that the wine decanter was full, straightening the cushions on the chaise. “But they seem to be fond of music. You will do everything in your power to see that they enjoy themselves, won’t you, Cora?”

“Yes, of course,” Sansa assured her. “Do you know if Prince Oberyn is fond of any songs in particular?”

“I couldn’t say. Just carry on as usual and do as you’re told. A man like him won’t be shy about telling you what he wants.”

There was an undertone to Samundi’s comment that made the hair stand up on the back of her neck. Suddenly, Sansa found herself wondering if it was only her playing that had inspired the prince to request a private performance from her.

“You’ll do well enough,” Samundi said again, patting her shoulder again—a brief, perfunctory gesture that did not reassure Sansa at all. “If all he wanted was a whore, he could have picked any other girl in the room.”

Sansa tried to find this reassuring, but she couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t betray her nerves. Instead, she seated herself at a low bench and pulled the harp towards her. With a final, sweeping backwards glance, Samundi left the room. Tytos followed her wordlessly.

 _Oberyn Martell has never seen me before,_ Sansa told herself, her hands limp in her lap. _But a man of his years might once have laid eyes on my mother._ Sansa knew that the older she grew, the more like her mother she became. _But my hair. No one will recognize me as Catelyn Tully’s daughter unless I am seen to have her hair._

Nervously, Sansa touched the top of her head. When the red began to show in her roots, it shone like a blazon against the dark dye. Perhaps she should begin applying the dye fresh every week, rather than waiting a fortnight.

*

_Ellaria_

The harpist was terrified. If she made herself any smaller, her arms would be tucked too close to her body to pluck the strings of her instrument. She knew who it was she was playing for, Ellaria was prepared to wager. And it seemed that she knew Oberyn’s reputation, at least when it came to women.

Across the room, Oberyn lay stretched out on the chaise. His head was in Ellaria’s lap, and his eyes were closed. Ellaria had maneuvered him into that position almost as soon as they entered the room. Not even the Red Viper of Dorne was threatening when he was flat on his back, making little sighing noises as Ellaria carded her fingers through his hair. That was one of the first things Ellaria had ever discovered him about him. He was fierce in battle, princely and arrogant when dealing with strangers, but he melted like a grateful dog under the ministrations of a gentle hand. It was useful knowledge to possess, when one was his paramour.

Ellaria herself sat upright, holding a wine cup in her free hand, listening to the music, glancing occasionally at the the mirror that reflected the harpist’s image. Ellaria was thinking in several different directions at once. At the forefront of her thoughts was the growing certainty that this little harpist was more than she seemed—more, even, than the old panderer who had offered her up to Oberyn like a rare fruit from the Summer Isles suspected her of being.

To begin with, Ellaria knew at a glance that the little harpist was no bastard. A bastard herself, Ellaria paid careful attention to these things. Everything about the girl that proclaimed her as having been “gently reared”, in the old woman’s words, suggested something else to Ellaria. The harpist was certainly not a Flowers, though she might have been a Sand, had she anything of the look of Dorne about her. A Flowers, a Waters, a Stone, a Snow, a Storm—when bastards from the other six kingdoms fell in the world, they became almost indistinguishable from commoners. It came of having been raised unwanted, of being told over and over that they were a shame on their families. When a Flowers found herself turned out of doors by her noble relations, she often found she had more in common with commoners than with her own blood kin. If she managed to find some means of supporting herself, it often transpired that she was happier out in the world amongst those who regarded her as an equal, or a better, than she had been among her own sneering relations.

A Sand was different. Sands were raised and educated alongside their trueborn siblings. In the absence of such siblings, they might even become heiresses themselves. Pluck a Sand from her comfortable surroundings and send her out in the world to make her living, and no one would ever mistake her as anything but the daughter of a noble house. That, at least, had been Ellaria’s experience, when she was turned away from Hellholt as a girl and sent to live with her mother, a courtesan of Lys.

The difference between a Flowers and a Sand—or a Flowers and a trueborn girl of noble birth—lay not so much in her airs and manners, which might be disguised or put aside if the girl was a skilled actress. It lay in her looks. Specifically, the way she looked at people like Mistress Samundi, or even at Oberyn. The highborn, boys and girls alike, were raised to rule. Even when they no longer had servants and dependents of their own to order about, they forgot that it was _their_ place to receive orders. Their polished courtesies lacked the necessary deference. 

The harpist had darted any number of nervous glances towards Ellaria and Oberyn since they entered the room, but she had not once asked whether her playing pleased them. She had not spoken to them at all, nor had she risen to curtsey when they appeared. Even the commonest of maids knew to bob a curtsey when a prince came in their midst. Only a highborn girl seeking to disguise her knowledge of courtly protocol would make such a blunder.

But the one quality which, more than anything else, marked the little harpist as something more than she claimed to be, was her naïvete. Highborn girls who fell in the world had trouble grasping the fact that the rules which had ordered their existence since birth no longer applied to them. They expected honor and honesty from people whose only concern in life was to advance their own prospects.

Only a highborn maiden of tender years could be fool enough to think that she might earn a wage in a pillow house by playing the harp, with nothing else being asked of her. 

“She has no idea,” Ellaria murmured softly, where only Oberyn could hear her.

“Hmm?” Oberyn did not open his eyes, but she knew he was listening carefully. 

“She thinks she is here to play the harp, and nothing more. She doesn’t know that the old woman means to sell her maidenhead.”

Oberyn did not move, but his whole body tensed, suddenly. “You think not?”

Ellaria tugged slightly on his hair, and he winced comically. “There is more. She is no bastard. She is the trueborn daughter of some noble house, north of the Crownlands. You can hear it in her speech.”

“I have heard her say nothing,” Oberyn grumbled.

“You were not listening. She greeted us when we entered the room.”

Slowly, as though reluctant to give up his comfortable perch, Oberyn straightened up and swung his legs over the edge of the chaise. Lifting his arms over his head, he stretched his back with an audible popping noise. Then he rearranged himself casually, sitting up sideways with a knee in Ellaria’s lap. At last, he turned his gaze on the girl on the far side of the room, who was doing her best to hide behind her harp.

“Your name is Cora?” he called, loud enough to be heard over the music.

The music died away faintly. The harpist bowed her head. “So I am called, my prince.”

Ellaria nudged him. _My prince_ , she mouthed at him, arching an eyebrow

Everywhere they traveled outside of Dorne, Oberyn was _my lord_ -ed on a regular basis—usually out of ignorance, sometimes from a deliberate wish to give insult. Oberyn rarely corrected those who fumbled his form of address. He considered it a useful means of probing people's true feelings about him. Ellaria _did_ correct them, albeit subtly, by example, and those who were well-intentioned quickly followed her lead. Those who defied correction, she took careful note of. Dornishmen could never afford to assume they were safe outside of Dorne.

“You have some skill at that instrument,” Oberyn told the girl. “But you must be weary from playing all night. Come and sit with us and have some wine.”

The harpist sat, frozen, for just a heartbeat too long, and that too betrayed her disguise. A commoner would be surprised by the invitation, but would be quick to obey, eager for any sign of favor from her noble patrons.

But a highborn girl in hiding, in fear of being found out, might be too frightened to realize that her reluctance could be perceived as offensive. And a highborn girl hiding in a pillow house would naturally be terrified that some man or other might attempt to use her as a whore—even if she did not fully realize that this had been the old woman’s plan for her all along.

Slowly, the harpist rose, and, with hands clasped before her, crossed the room. Oberyn, all gallantry, stood and took her hand, bowing her into the seat next to Ellaria. He then arranged himself at the far end of the chaise, giving Ellaria a look: _you said you wanted to speak with her._

“Cora,” said Ellaria softly, noting how the girl flinched—perhaps her false name did not yet sound familiar to her ears. “Where did you learn to play the harp so beautifully?”

The harpist took a deep breath. “My mother served Lady Rowan. At Goldengrove there were many fine entertainments, and much music. As a girl, I listened whenever I had the chance. One day, Lady Rowan’s daughter grew frustrated with her music lessons, and I offered to help her. I was her handmaiden then. The music master grew angry with me because I could not read the notes, only play what I heard. He complained to Lady Rowan, and I lost my place as Lady Marigold’s maid. I was sent to work in the kitchens, but the cook did not care for me, so I decided to come to Oldtown and try my fortunes.”

Ellaria, looking over the harpists’s bowed head, staring at Oberyn with both eyebrows raised. _That was a well-rehearsed story if ever I heard one,_ she thought. _Neatly told, all in a single breath, with more detail than I asked her for. In other words, a lie through and through._

“Did you leave Goldengrove against Lady Rowan's wishes?” Oberyn asked, his voice mild. 

The harpist looked at him, wide-eyed and startled. Then she looked at Ellaria, and Ellaria tried her utmost to reflect only patience and acceptance back at her.

“I…I do not know that Lady Rowan cared,” the harpist said, stumblingly. “I was only a kitchen girl. I would be surprised if she noted my absence.”

Ellaria nearly cringed on the girl’s behalf. No lowborn kitchen maid would dream of leaving her liege lady’s service without permission. Not unless they were uncommonly wild, and Ellaria already knew that this girl was gentle and dutiful, perhaps to a fault.

“If Lady Rowan cared nothing for your abrupt departure, someone else did.” Oberyn waved his wine goblet lazily. “You are hiding from someone.”

Heat flared in Ellaria’s chest. She could have _smacked_ Oberyn. What was he about, confronting the girl so brazenly? How was she ever to trust them, if…

Ellaria did not know when she had decided that she needed to win the little harpist’s trust. But she did want it, she realized. She wanted that sweet face to look up into hers, to see no fear in those dark blue eyes. She wanted the girl to tell her all her troubles, so that Ellaria might soothe them away.

“I—I do not know why you should say so, my prince,” the harpist stammered.

“That shade of brown is not becoming to your complexion. Forgive me my want of chivalry; you are a lovely girl, as I am sure you have been told. But the dye diminishes your natural radiance.” 

The girl stared at him, white as a sheet. Then, abruptly, Oberyn leaned forward. Just as quickly, the girl leaned back, until she was almost in Ellaria’s lap. Ellaria seized her chance: she placed her hands on the girl’s shoulders and rubbed her arms soothingly, leaning in to whisper in her ear.

“Forgive my prince his want of tact,” Ellaria said. “His exuberance sometimes gets the better of him, but he would never harm you.”

“I shall not lay a finger on you,” Oberyn confirmed agreeably, continuing to advance until his nose was an inch or so from the crown of the girl’s head. He made a little _hah!_ of triumph, then fell back against the arm of the chaise. Ellaria, however, did not let go of the girl’s shoulders. She continue to stroke soothing fingertips across her arms, brushing the girl’s hair away from her face.

“Red hair,” he said. “I might have guessed, with skin so fair as yours. Why should you diminish such glory? Unless, of course, someone is looking for you. Hair of such a shade would mark you like a brand.”

The harpist grew rigid in Ellaria’s arms. Ellaria, peering over her shoulder, glared hard at Oberyn. A faintly contrite expression entered his eyes, but he did not apologize. It simply was not in his nature to regret his own curiosity.

Ellaria persisted in her attempts to calm the harpist with light, sweet touches. “Ignore him,” she said. “I think your hair is lovely. So thick, and such waves.” 

The harpist shivered under Ellaria’s touch as Ellaria gathered a thick handful of hair and swept it all off one shoulder, combing it with her fingers over the other. She traced a finger over the back of the girl's neck—then, she froze.  
Now that the cloak of the girl’s hair was swept to the side, the plunging back of her silk gown was revealed, permitting a broad glimpse of the flesh underneath. The harpist’s back was smooth, unblemished by moles or other such natural imperfections. But it was striped—from her shoulder blades to the dip of her spine—with scars. The welts were long-healed, but they were not old—they were still pink, rather than white.

She had been beaten, probably within an inch of her life, a few months ago at the utmost. A highborn maid, beaten like a thieving guttersnipe.

Ellaria knew that her mouth had fallen open, that despite appearances Oberyn was watching her sharply. But she could not help herself. Never before had she seen such a thing. She had known a high lord or two in her time who regarded it as his seigneurial right to chastise his wife or daughters. But even in such cases, a blow from the back of the hand was the utmost such men usually dared.

The harpist drew a quick breath. She seemed to realize, all of a sudden, what Ellaria had seen. She leapt to her feet, facing Ellaria with her hands clasped before her.

“If…if I might entertain you with another song,” she started to say.

But in her fright and her haste, she had made a mistake. Her hair was still as Ellaria had arranged it, hanging over the left shoulder. Thus, in turning to face Ellaria, she inadvertently revealed her bare back to _Oberyn_.

Ellaria winced, preparing herself for what was about to come.

Oberyn set his wine cup down on the table with such force that it would have shattered it, had it been made of crystal rather than silver. He rose, slowly, his eyes trained on the girl’s back. The harpist back away from him, but she could not escape his scrutiny; he circled her like a predator. 

“Where did you come by such scars?" he said, in a soft, dangerous voice. "If Lady Rowan permits her servants to be misused so, Lord Tyrell will certainly hear of it from me.”

She shut her eyes wearily. _You sweet, blind fool_ , she thought. Ellaria had assumed that Oberyn had seen and understood all that _she_ had seen, but she’d been mistaken. He still saw nothing more than that the girl was in disguise, and that had been obvious from the moment they’d first laid eyes on her.

The harpist stood still, trembling, her eyes fixed on the floor. What would she say, Ellaria wondered? Would she seize gratefully upon the explanation that Oberyn had offered? Or did she have some excuse prepared for this too?

“My prince,” she whispered. Her voice trembled, and her throat sounded tight with tears. “Say nothing to Lord Tyrell, I beg you.”

“The Reach is his demesne, as Dorne is my brother’s. If any lord of Dorne visited such cruelties on his sworn retainers, Doran would put a swift stop to it. Lord Tyrell must do the same for his own bannermen. It is no more than his duty.”

“But Lady Rowan…” The girl wrung her hands. “She didn’t…”

Oberyn’s brow furrowed. He folded his arms across his chest and leaned back, peering at the girl as if trying to pluck out the heart of her mystery.

Ellaria considered putting an end to the farce then and there. By now, she thought she knew precisely who her little harpist was. A suspicion had been growing at the back of her mind for some time, but when Oberyn had spied the red roots concealed at the base of her scalp, the suspicion had been confirmed.

All throughout the Reach, the King’s riders had been circulating descriptions of a missing girl: the Queen’s own ward, carried away by persons unknown during the siege of the Blackwater. The lost lady was, in the words of the warrant, a highborn maiden about two-and-ten, fair and tall—with red hair. 

The descriptions said nothing about the scars on her back, but they only confirmed the girl’s identity in Ellaria’s mind. Sansa Stark had been in Lannister hands since the day her father was beheaded; she had been a hostage of the Lannisters even as the King in the North lay waste to Tywin Lannister’s armies in the Riverlands.

In Dorne, it was understood that gentle, highborn ladies were not safe when Lannisters held the power of life and death over them. Compared to some, Sansa was lucky to have escaped with no more than scars to show for her months of captivity.

“I lied,” said Sansa Stark, the words bursting from her, as though it took all the strength of her will to force herself to say them. “I lied, about all of it. I never met Lady Rowan in my life, nor Lady Marigold. I never saw Goldengrove. Forgive me.”

“Why should you lie about such a thing?” Oberyn sounded bewildered, rather than angry.

It was on the tip of Ellaria’s tongue to say something—she did not know what, but it was more than she could bear to let Oberyn continue blundering down this path. But then Sansa Stark turned away from him, and looked at her. Her blue eyes were luminous with unshed tears. She didn’t seem to know what it was she wished to say, but her expression was one of mute appeal.

What did it say of Sansa Stark, that she had discarded her false history in an instant, rather than allow the Rowans of Goldengrove to be slandered by false accusations of cruelty? Ellaria thought she knew. It said that Sansa Stark was too good, too tenderhearted to survive much longer in her present condition. If she would not lie to save herself, it was only a matter of time before she was lost forever.

 _But not if we save her first,_ , Ellaria thought, with sudden, fierce determination.

“Come back here,” Ellaria said. She patted the chaise. “Sit with me again. Do not be afraid. Neither my prince nor I mean you any harm.”

When Sansa looked reluctant, Ellaria extended an arm, beckoning her. Slowly, Sansa perched on the very edge of the seat, her eyes bent on Ellaria, as though she half expected, half dreaded what Ellaria would say next.

“My dear,” Ellaria said gently. “Your name is not Cora, is it?”

Sansa shook her head. Behind her, Oberyn snorted. “The mother of the girl who served us wine below stairs did not call her babe Opal, either, I am sure.”

“Ignore him,” said Ellaria, and Oberyn made a wounded noise. “My dear. My sweet girl.” She lifted a hand and traced the back of her hand over a smooth cheek. “You did not flee to Oldtown from Goldengrove. You fled from King’s Landing. Am I right?”

Before her very eyes, Sansa seemed to wilt. Her head slumped forward first. She caught it in her hands, pressing her palms against her eyes. 

“King’s Landing?” Oberyn voice was sharp. “But why should—”

It was obvious to Ellaria, the moment the penny dropped. Oberyn too had seen the warrants borne by the King's riders. And it had been he who had spotted the red roots of her hair.

His jaw fell slack. His arms fell away from his chest, and his hands hung loose and empty at his sides.

“You escaped,” Ellaria continued, stroking Sansa’s nut-brown hair, even as the girl continued to slump until her elbows touched her knees. “You must have been so very brave, slipping away through the city during the siege. I can only imagine what the Lannisters must have done to you, to make you think it worth the risk.”

This last was for Oberyn’s benefit. He was still slotting the pieces together, and Ellaria thought he needed the additional prompting to see the connection between the stripes on Sansa’s back and the fact that she had been a hostage in the capital.

Once he saw it, however, his reaction was swift and terrible. It was just as well that Sansa’s back was to him, that she was covering her eyes; had Ellaria not known Oberyn as well as she did, even she might have been frightened by the sudden spasm of rage that contorted his features.

Like a child, he stuffed his fist into his mouth and stalked to the far side of the room—closer to Sansa’s harp than to Sansa. But the room was not so large that he could not hear Ellaria as she continued to speak in soft tones.

“And how clever you were, earning an honest living by playing the harp for coin,” she said, continuing to smooth Sansa’s hair with her hand, as water smoothed away ripples in the sand. “I think there must be very few highborn maidens who could keep body and soul together so long as you have, with no one in the world to support or defend them.”

Oberyn ceased his pacing. He stood with his head bowed, the fingers of one hand splayed against the wall, as though he needed the support.

When he raised his head to meet Ellaria’s gaze, she saw that his eyes were rimmed in red. Ellaria’s heart was wrung with love and compassion. She had not made the comparison between Sansa and Elia aloud. There were some subjects she never mentioned in Oberyn's hearing unless Oberyn mentioned them first. His sister's death was chief among them. But it was plain enough that Oberyn no longer needed Ellaria’s help to see the shade of his sweet sister in this lost, beleaguered maiden whose back was scored with Lannister claw marks. 

“The seamstresses would not have me.” Sansa’s voice was so low, so muffled at first, that Ellaria scarcely heard her. “I tried to get employment in a tavern kitchen and I was laughed at. They sent me here.”

Oberyn’s mouth thinned to a white slash in his bloodless face.

“My lady,” said Ellaria—softly, so softly that not even the spies who were undoubtedly listening to them through the grate in the floor could hear her. “You must know that it is not safe for you to remain here.”

Sansa lifted her face from her hands at last. Her skin was blotchy with quiet weeping. “I have been fairly paid, and no one has offered me insult.”

“No.” Ellaria plucked at the folds of Sansa’s white silk gown where they lay draped over her knee. “Not _yet_.”

And that, it seemed, was all that Oberyn could bear. With an inarticulate roar, he threw wide the door of the sitting room and stalked out into the corridor, banging the door shut behind him. Ellaria could hear the thunderous tread of his boots as he marched down the hallway.

Whoever was spying for the old woman, they had better warn her quickly that a prince of Dorne was coming to confront her, or she was likely to end the evening in the stocks.

Sansa jolted when the door slammed like she’d been struck by lightning. Ellaria shushed her, and gripped her hand.

“He is angry with me,” Sansa said, all in a rush, as though Oberyn’s departure had loosened her tongue. “I lied to him, I lied to you both, and the King’s men are _looking_ for me—”

“Sansa.” 

Like a magic charm, the sound of her name seemed to curb Sansa's rising hysteria. How long had it been since Sansa Stark heard anyone address her by her proper name? How long had she been Cora? Who had she been before that?

“Oberyn is not angry with _you_ ,” Ellaria said, with all the reassurance she could imbue into the words. “When first we noticed you, the old woman who runs this establishment offered to sell him your maidenhead.”

Sansa's face grew impossibly whiter than it was already. Ellaria's grip tightened on her hands.

“I was suspicious, so I demanded a private audience with you,” she continued. “I had not observed you long before I realized that you had no knowledge of her true intentions. You believed she hired you for your skill upon the harp. In truth, she saw that you were gently born, and a maiden. She kept you set apart only until she found a man who could afford the pay the price that such treasures fetch in these places. She judged Oberyn to be the man she was waiting for.” Ellaria laughed ruefully. “She will regret that deception now. Oberyn would never have bedded you unless you were truly willing and unafraid, but it is sheer chance that he happened upon you before some other man—a man who might be lacking my prince’s tender sense of honor. It is for your sake that he is wroth.”

Sansa listened to her carefully, the slight shift of her features registering disbelief, then confusion, then something Ellaria could not quite identify—but it made Sansa’s cheeks bloom with color.

“Will he send me back to King’s Landing?” she said, softly, her voice full of dread. 

Ellaria burst into hearty, full-throated laughter. “Give you back to the Lannisters?” she cried. “My dear. I see you do not know Oberyn at all. He would not return a dog who had fled the Lannisters to King’s Landing. Much less a treasure as rare and precious as you.”

“I am not…” Sansa stared at her for a long moment. Then she stood, and for a second, Ellaria feared that she meant to flee the room. 

Instead, Sansa walked over to the harp, strumming her fingers lightly over the strings. She kept her back to Ellaria as she spoke.

“Perhaps,” she said softly, “perhaps…if Prince Oberyn is so fond of music…I might be of use to him in Sunspear? I could play to entertain his brother's court.”

There was such tremulous hope in Sansa’s voice that Ellaria felt suddenly as though her heart would burst in her chest. For the first time since she had entered the room, she rose, and crossed to where Sansa stood. She did not touch her, but she stood so close that she could feel the warmth of Sansa’s body along the length of her arm.

“When Oberyn returns, we will no doubt find him full of plans and grand declarations,” Ellaria told her confidingly. “But I can tell you the meaning of them now. Oberyn will see it as nothing less than his duty to place you under his protection and escort you to his brother. There, the sun and spears of Dorne will guard you from all further harm. You will not come to Sunspear as a servant, or a hired girl who must sing for her supper. You will come as my lady of Stark.”

“But Dorne…Princess Myrcella's betrothal…” Sansa sounded stricken, strangled. Her chest rose and fell rapidly. “If Joffrey learns where I am…”

Ellaria realized that Sansa was on the verge of a gasping, breathless fit. Obara used to have them, when she was but a little maid—fiercer than any squire in Doran’s training yards, but still haunted by the life she had escaped when Oberyn brought her out of this very city. Obara had had bad dreams sometimes, dreams in which her father had never come for her, dreams in which he sent her back. It was fear that made the breath seize in her chest, and she had been ashamed to let anyone see her, comfort her--save for Ellaria.

Ellaria stepped forward briskly and took Sansa’s face between her two hands. She stared into the Valyrian blue of Sansa’s wide eyes and spoke in a low, confident voice.

“The King,” she said, “can fuck himself.”

Sansa’s already wide eyes grew huge.

“Oberyn will tell you so himself soon. Perhaps not quite in those same words.”

They stared at each other for a long moment. Then Sansa clapped a hand to her mouth. At first, Ellaria thought she was restraining a sob. 

Then, she realized that Sansa was giggling.

Ellaria grinned widely, and soon they were both laughing—for the thrill of defiance, for relief, for how many other things, Ellaria could not judge. Only one thing was plain to her, and it was that Sansa was beautiful when she laughed. 

Ellaria could not wait to see how much more beautiful she would be when the walnut dye was rinsed from her hair.

“I—I am so sorry,” said Sansa, when they had both caught their breath again. “I do not even know your name, my lady.”

“I am no lady," Ellaria declared proudly. "My name is Ellaria Sand, paramour to Oberyn, prince of Dorne, mother of four of his daughters.” She touched Sansa’s face tenderly. “And once, many years ago, I was not so different from you. Oberyn saved me then, and he will save you now.”

Much of the tension, and most of the fear, had left Sansa’s face. There was wonder in her eyes now. “Save me for what?” she said.

Before she could answer, there was a sudden burst of shouting from outside the door. Ellaria distinctly heard a bellow, which could mean nothing but that her prince had worked himself up into a proper rage. A shrill female voice was answering him back. Ellaria wondered whether it was Oberyn's advancing years that made him fool enough to get into a shouting match with an evil, venal old woman, instead of simply calling the city guard to confine her someplace until she could be summoned to appear before Lord Hightower for her crimes.

“If you come to Dorne with us,” Ellaria said, permitting herself just the faintest hint of a teasing smirk, “you will be certain to find out.”

Sansa blinked at her. Then she pressed her hands to her eyes once again. But when she wiped the tears away this time, she was smiling.

There was nothing for it. Ellaria, gazing down into that smile, was lost. She leaned forward and pressed her lips to Sansa’s forehead, and her whole body warmed with relief when Sansa did not pull away. 

“Come,” she said. “Let us collect our prince before he gets his eyes scratched out.”

Sansa giggled again, and pressed her face into Ellaria’s shoulder. As the sweet weight settled against her, Ellaria decided that Oberyn could defend his own eyes. She was quite content where she was.


End file.
